


plans that no one likes.

by Prettything_uglylie



Series: fictober 2020 [19]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Confused Nile Freeman, Crack Treated Seriously, Dark Comedy, Dark Crack, F/F, Faked Organized Crime, Faked Suicide, Gen, Identity Swap, James Copley is a Good Guy, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, Kinda, M/M, Mission Fic, Mortal Andy | Andromache of Scythia, Nile Freeman Has the Team's Only Brain Cell, Not The Old Guard (Comics) Compliant, POV Andy | Andromache of Scythia, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, The Old Guard: Force Multiplied, Tired Andy | Andromache of Scythia, VERY very briefly mentioned, a mission ripped directly from the comics that i barely understood, and not even sure in what regards it works, i'm sorry @ both the immortal wives and immortal husbands, light bashing of american influencers, referenced orgy, some comic references tho, such as this mission, you can guess which in the comments if you'd like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:21:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27102616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prettything_uglylie/pseuds/Prettything_uglylie
Summary: I hate this plan, Andy's phone lights up with the notification and she slaps Nile's hand when she goes to reach for it.- Joe, Nicky, Nile and Andy clean up the mess in the wake of Booker's exile.
Relationships: Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova & Nile Freeman, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: fictober 2020 [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1954993
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	plans that no one likes.

**Author's Note:**

> hey so this is a plan ripped directly from the comics where I clearly don't understand all of it but Andy seemed to and I think I've pieced it together enough for this! I hope you like it and this chapter is...oddly filled with inside jokes and theories.  
> Also, this is my, uh, very first time writing from Andy's perspective so please, let me know if you think I should/could change up the perspectives a little!  
> If any of you care to make headcanons, theories or any facts about this, I would love to read them in the comments! Please be nice, though!

> > **Two weeks after the exile of Sebastien "Booker" LeLivre.**

_I hate this plan,_ Andy's phone lights up with the notification and she slaps Nile's hand when she goes to reach for it. 

"It's Nicky," she complains as though Andy doesn't know and one of Andy's shoulders move in a shrug before she responds coolly, 

"He knows we have to." 

Fake the deaths, she thinks grimly, make it believable or no one knows to how to buy it. Organized crime is the safest look, it's the one thing that police simultaneously know nothing and everything about. 

Her phone rings with a second notification and, from Nile's face, likely from Nicky as well. She glances at Andy with those curious eyes before taking it gently from the console as though it's hot to the touch. She's scared too, Andy realizes, but she reads Nicky's text out loud with a shaking voice, " _one of them - sarah - tried to seduce me to change our minds."_

She laughs wryly, considering a twenty-something girl trying her best on Nicky, who's closest sexual experiment to girls was that time that he, Joe, Andy and Quynh took some pills in Attenborough and spent the next two days going at it - something that still makes him flustered if you bring it up to this day. These girls, these kids, of whom they've stolen the sportscars of are known as "influencers", some type of chance to gain money over doing nothing to her but she isn't the one deciding. She's just the one using it to make sure that whoever is looking for them, is no longer looking for them, they're pawns to tie up the loose ends. 

How lucky for her that some American influencers visited England, which makes her job easier. Americans are louder, she knows from experience. 

Nile snorts as the sound fills the room again and she repeats, "' _made it clear Joe and I are married.'_ Are they actually married?" 

She looks at Nile, confused before asking, "Yeah. According to a few countries." 

"Nicky doesn't wear a ring. Neither does Joe, not on that finger." Nile notes and Andy wonders how much of that is training versus just natural curiosity - it's the first time in a while that Andy realizes she's trained herself to notice every small detail like that as a way to steer clear of endangerment, _yet you still hadn't seen Book coming, huh?_ She thinks miserably. 

She misses him already. 

She shrugs. She hadn't really considered the lack of rings from her boys - after all, everyone who knew them just knew it was Nicky and Joe, Joe and Nicky, in love and inseparable and it was just obvious in the air between them that they were intertwined with one another, souls destined for each other in a way that Nicky absolutely thinks about and Joe will ramble poetically on. She hopes they die together, she knows it's a bitter thing and that _if_ \- a big _if -_ she's still alive, losing both would crush her but she can't imagine how the other would break if one of them went first. 

She shrugs again, "Don't need them. You know Joe and Nicky." 

Even Andy doesn't really know what she means by that. Maybe just that Nile has noticed how they are, maybe that Nile knows how it is to love and not need rings, maybe that Nile knows until recently, they weren't allowed to love on paper. Maybe that Andy's thinking about slipping a ring onto Quynh's finger and it feels like she's the one drowning. 

Nile agrees mutely, "Right." 

She wonders if she thinks they do need rings, and then she crashes the car over the bridge and holds onto the feeling of drowning to feel close to her again. Even as Nile drags her out of the car and onto a riverbank, unseen by police who are frantic over the Mustang crashed into the lake, sure they're still inside. 

"It was a nice car." Nile remarks with a fake somberness and it makes her laugh even though her heart and lungs are still full of water. 

* * *

"It was a stupid risk." Nicky murmurs again and Andy grinds her teeth to refuse stabbing him. _She knows_ , _she knows she's mortal now, Nicky, that every time she pulls a stunt like that now she risks it for real._

She shrugs at him, aiming for apathetic and hitting it like one does a bullseye, "One I was willing to take." 

"One you shouldn't have!" Joe's voice is louder than Nicky's quiet, bubbling concern had been but she knows they were both worried about her. That they both do, as they view her as an older sister and with her death would be a great loss to them but then Nicky's hand is on Joe's arm and he's murmuring assurances to his husband in a mix of Italian and Arabic that all roughly translate to _calm down, my love._

She hopes they die together - can't imagine being torn apart like she and Quynh were for them. 

Nicky's eyes are broken sea, a lake at tide and broken entirely before he says, accent curling around the consonants and kissing the vowels gently, "We were just worried. It was a large risk." 

She hopes his accent never dwindles, she hopes that light never leaves his eyes - she hopes too much when it comes to Nicky and it's all the fault of her heart declaring him the youngest of her little brothers. 

Before - before Booker. 

"It was." She agrees. She strides carefully into their Paris safe house, taking in their yellowing walls and the peeling paint where there had been large rooms and a glass floor in the other home before admitting, "I hate American influencers." 

Andy hears Nile's frown without seeing her when she starts to defend them, "They aren't that bad." 

"Nile," Joe warns, no ill-will towards her in his voice, and she wonders how he and Nicky can scold without sounding cruel. Maybe, she's just roughened herself around the edges too much, "pick your battles." 

"Sarah was nice." Nicky concedes but she knows when it comes to most Americans the Italian feels the same as she does - exhausted and not thrilled due to history and time and time spent in history. 

She snorts, sounding a bit bitter to herself, "She just wanted to fuck you." 

Nicky's frown is almost funny as he protests, "The poor girl just wanted to live - it was sad." 

She laughs again because _life is sad, isn't it? Just a broken hope that you don't meet your maker too early and now? Now, she's part of that._

"I need to get laid soon." She complains, "I've been missing getting pussy." 

Joe laughs and Nicky smiles, shaking his head in exasperation as Nile gapes at her wide-eyed like a child hearing that for the first time. It makes her laugh along with Joe. 

It feels a little warmer, but their names aren't forgotten. No, not ever. 

She misses Booker. 

She misses Quynh. 

She's become a graveyard of abandoning the people she loves. 

* * *

The news breaks the next morning, discussing how two women stole a sportscar from famous American influencers before plummeting to their deaths the day prior in an act believed to be tied to organized crime. 

She makes the necessary phone call, "You have pictures out well enough that anyone from Merrick will think we're dead?" 

"Good morning to you too, Andromache." James Copley relishes sarcastically on his side of the phone and she refuses the urge to tell him plain and simple to fuck off before he answers properly, maybe sensing her anger towards him, "I did. Anyone who knew you in England has seen the side-profiles and police are no longer looking for Andy, Joe, Nicky, Nile or Booker, according to all the information Merrick's men had." 

He sighs and sounds as though he takes a sip from something before bringing up, lavish amusement in his British accent, "Did you hear there was an explosion in Merrick Industries, destroying one of their labs, over there this morning?" 

"I didn't." She answers honestly but is relieved. She hadn't considered how much evidence all of Joe and Nicky's torture had left behind but knowing Copley did and covered their asses is reassuring. Maybe she's beginning to be okay with letting him live after all. "Thank you, Copley." 

"Tell the others I say good morning," he chirps before continuing, "the new identities should be there soon." 

"Thanks." She says dismissively, hanging up the phone before crushing it under her boot. 

Nile regards her from where she pours her coffee in the kitchen-living room split before commenting demurely, "Girl, we've gotta get you some therapy." 

She doesn't think Nile means just the phone-stomping. 

"Joe and Nicky still in bed?" Andy asks, shifting the topic and Nile nods, pulling a sip from her steaming coffee before starting, 

"Why'd we do...yesterday?" 

Andy won't laugh at her, it would be rude so she frowns and answers, "Stole from the rich, something we've done for eras. Stole from people who will talk the loudest about it means everyone knows and everyone knows we're dead." 

"You and I," Nile starts skeptically, "what about Joe and Nicky?" 

She pretends to consider before boldly starting, "Shooting each other in the heart is a pretty good way to pretend you're dead to some people." 

Nile cringes and she wonders if she's thinking about how easy she would have bought it years ago or if she's thinking about how hard it must have been for Nicky and Joe to shoot each other. 

She knows Joe panics, knows Joe worries one of these times will be the last and she knows Nicky internalizes it but his fear is all there in those storm-blue eyes. She doesn't blame them. She wouldn't have been able to kill Quynh either. 

"And Booker?" She asks, confident despite the way the rest of the Guard has been flinching around his name and Andy has noticed she still seems mad they exiled him. Andy can't blame her, she misses him too. 

"Disappeared." She answers with a sarcastic wave of her hands. 

Nile snorts into her coffee. 

The rest of their breakfast is pretty quiet as they discuss the weather outside, a beautiful bird on a hollow piece of wood dangling out of the safehouse, and new identities for Copley to make them. 

**Author's Note:**

> hey, i hope you liked this! Once again, I would love to hear headcanons, theories or facts about anything in this or just thoughts in general! I hope you like this and please be nice or I will be sad tbh!  
> Thank you!


End file.
